


tired

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Flashbacks, Implied Backstory, M/M, this was really a quick vent fic enjoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 20:29:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14961642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The man dangling below him looked so much like Shiro.





	tired

_I am tired._

_I am tired_ , was the only phrase in his head as he rose to his feet, his knives still alive with the electricity surge from cutting His fake arm. It hadn’t been that deep, but He had recoiled so fast that He had yanked the rest of the wires and metal and mesh apart Himself, the red and black tubes now curling in His shoulder socket. He was screaming. Keith didn’t make a sound.

_I am tired_ , he thought again when He opened His mouth and said his name. Was that really how it had always sounded? Was that really what he was called? It seemed so distant, the little bump in His voice that Keith used to give him so much grief for now pulsing like needles in his ears.

“Keith. _Keith_.”

_I am so fucking tired_ , was the last thing he thought before the bridge collapsed under them. The glass tubes that held dozens, hundreds of bodies all sharing His face lost their bearings and crashed to the side of deck in the rush of violet and black. The wires gave way. The metal braces groaned under the weight of too much in one place and Keith felt his legs move, pulled along by some center of gravity that he didn’t remember being there in the first place until he was falling. Up and down and sideways all at once.

_Please don’t do this._

He was reaching. An unruly part of him he couldn’t keep down now matter how tight he screwed his eyes shut clawed its way out of him. He was in front of him. He was falling too, thrashing like an animal with no balance until His head crunched against the side of an iron pipe, His body going as limp and as lifeless as the wisps of crushed stardust around him.

_Please just close your eyes._

They were hanging off the side of the falling ship, Keith’s knife buried to the hilt inbetween the metal plates. His hand hurt. Both hands hurt. One was barely holding onto the dagger between his fingers and the other was hopelessly, terribly, desperately wrapped around His wrist, holding His body, His life above the endless abyss of white thousands of miles below them.

_Please just stop._

He couldn’t stop staring at him. Grains of crystallized metal were clinging to His hair now, black flakes of ash dotting the skies around them. Without the beads of violent lilac in His eyes and that alien smile that had taken root in his features long ago, he almost looked peaceful. kind. gentle. He wore the same face he did when Keith found him captive in that base those years ago, and he knew that if he reached out to touch the scars along his nose and lining of his jaw he would feel that same faint pulse, that same energy that had yet to be stomped out or spread thin no matter how many times they tried to rebuild him without it.

The man dangling below him looked so much like Shiro.

An ache that had been seeping into his bones ever since he had opened his mouth to say those three words was reaching its peak. The ship groaned again, this time sending tremors down all sides, Keith letting out a sound as he slid down the side, stopping inches from the edge. They had minutes before it gave out. Seconds. His fingers hurt. His heart hurt. He didn’t want to fight anymore. He didn’t want to hold on. He didn’t want to be the one to hold Him above water, the one to make that choice, the one to watch as that burning, terrible light faded from his eyes.

“Keith.”

The voice in his head was not his own. It came from far, far away. It came from six rooms down at the orphanage, the voice muffled from the scarf draped over his shoulders, a flashlight lying tossed on the ground and casting shadows along the dark hallway. The wallpaper was peeling. It smelled of old rice and insulation and Keith couldn’t seem to let go of Shiro’s hand, too afraid to sneak out when he wasn’t supposed to, too afraid to let Shiro climb beyond the walls alone, too afraid to BE alone, without him for the first time in his life while Shiro went off to some military garrison a million worlds away. He couldn’t see anything beyond Shiro’s eyes in the dark, eyes full of sadness, brimming with a deepness that would take years from Keith to understand, years for him to see what was breaking behind them, and another dozen months on an island thousands of miles away from that tiny two-story building to forgive him.

“Let go.”

Keith shut his eyes. He let the metal under his dagger break with his weight, letting them both fall, and letting the exhaustion that had consumed his every waking thought since that day finally overtake him.

_I love you._

_Goodnight._

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a post that said they "shared the same house" a while back, that was why they were so close, and I immediately thought they must have been dumped at the same foster home or orphanage. I like the idea and thought it would intergrate well in here so yeah.


End file.
